Re: Statistics (was: Re: 55 minute download

That's quite a rant. Unfortunately Judy completely distorted some of
the facts of the previous messages.

The statistics were brought up in response to Katharine Thayer's
suggestion that people who use broad band service are elitists. They
were not meant to convince anyone that they should adopt a
particular service because it is sanctioned by the majority. However,
the fact that a majority of internet users get their service via
broad band versus dial-up debunks KT's uninformed notion that broad
band users are elitists. I don't think it possible to be an elitist
and a part of the majority on a specific issue.

But just for the record, the primary purpose of my original message
was to suggest that there are alternatives to 55 minute downloads, at
least for some people.

Sandy

>>>>It is not an "elitist" idea, it's just the way things are going.
>
>Now let me get this straight... We independent thinkers, original
>creative artists, self-actualized personalities, free spirits, proud
>humanists, strong-willed searchers, and seekers of truth (etc. etc.
>and so forth, get your own thesaurus) are being told to do it
>because the *majority* are doing it (possibly, apparently,
>statistically -- or not).
>
>Like footbinding, or belly button piercing, suttee, or female
>circumcision, among "going" ways of other cultures ?
>
>In this culture it's do what the nice corporation tells you to do so
>CEOs and merger managers can suck up more millions -- whether or not
>you personally feel a need or see a benefit and if you don't you're
>an out-of-it luddite unprogressive dorky retard. You're saying that
>with a straight face (so to speak)?
>
>Not to mention that in the recent past Sandy King, of all people,
>has told us this is the 21st century, so get with the program. Has
>anyone failed to notice that the 21st century is (so far) a
>disaster, worse even than the 20th, which was bad enough?
>
>Is this how lemmings do it? Or call it "manufacturing consent" (I
>believe a phrase coined by that spawn of Satan Noam Chomsky, but
>seems to apply here).
>
>Judy
>
>>Actually that's only true if you use the newer browsers. I use an
>>ancient browser that's very fast. I have a newer one on the disk to use
>>for websites that won't work with the old browser, but it works slower
>>than the dickens and I refuse to use it except when absolutely
>>necessary. And even the "newer" one is several versions back.
>>
>>I deleted Mateo's mail after a brief glance this morning, because I
>>thought I was done talking about bandwidth and all that. But being a
>>statistican, numbers interest me and I've been thinking about those
>>numbers off and on all day.
>>
>>I've emptied the trash and the archives are behind, so I can't look at
>>the post again to check the numbers, but the way I remember it, it said
>>that by a recent estimate, 63 million (people? connections?) were
>>connected by broadband and 61.3 by narrowband, reflecting a 47% increase
>>in broadband and a 13% decrease in narrowband from the year before.
>>
>>If I've got the figures right, that means that over the year there were
>>20 million more broadband (users, connections, whatever the unit was)
>>but only 9 million fewer narrowband units. If this is so, then it would
>>be misleading to attribute the increase, or even half of the increase,
>>in broadband to people switching from narrowband. I don't know where
>>those other 11 million came from, but if these numbers are right, they
>>weren't dialup customers moving up.
>>
>>This is the kind of thing I think about while driving, sorry about that.
>>Katharine Thayer
Received on Sun Sep 5 08:40:13 2004